Brown dwarfs often get lost in the gaze of astronomy enthusiasts toward larger objects — stars — or smaller ones — planets. Nonetheless, these substellar objects that are not massive enough to ignite fusion reactions reveal fascinating things about the cosmos.
An important new book on brown dwarfs is just out from Springer: 50 Years of Brown Dwarfs: From Prediction to Discovery to Forefront of Research (Viki Joergens, Editor, 168 pp., hardcover, Springer, New York, 2014, $129, ISBN 978-3-319-01161-5).
The editor, Viki Joergens, is a well-known research staff scientist at the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg, Germany. Contributors include some big names in astronomy: Alex Wolszczan (the foreword), Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute, Rafael Rebolo of the Institute for Astrophysics at Tenerife, and Gibor Basri of the University of California among them.
The book begins with the theoretical prediction of brown dwarfs in the late 1950s and surveys the entire field, principally aimed at the brown dwarf research community, but also of high interest to well-informed astronomy readers.
I encourage you to check it out!
Follow David J. Eicher on Twitter: www.twitter.com/deicherstar